Merry Christmas from the House Full of Nerds!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays/Holy Days from all of us to all of you!

Vintage Technology Obsessions passed the 30,000 page view mark sometime last night.  I appreciate your visits, comments and all your creative endeavors.  The Typosphere is a darned nice place to be.

As for the handsome guy at the center of this photo, be sure to read about the Origins of the Christmas Squirrel at
http://vintagetechobsessions.blogspot.com/2011/12/on-origins-of-christmas-squirrel-part-1.html
and
http://vintagetechobsessions.blogspot.com/2011/12/origins-of-christmas-squirrel-part-2.html

We're Still Here! Mayan Apocalypse, Denied!

The robot army is victorious and the Mayan Destructors have been purged!  The victors shall have their spoils!

This little guy worked hard.  He deserves a Thin Mint!

They perhaps don't look quite as menacing in color.  Just saying.

The end of hostilities was recognized with the issuance of a presidential peace medallion patterned after one of the originals found at the Arch museum in St. Louis.  The Mayans have declared a truce until the next time their calendar runs out.  The have a few pyramids to rebuild in the interim.

The fact that the House Full of Nerds visited the Arch on the 21st after seeing Wicked the night before is purely coincidental.  Come to think of it, many of the stories I cobble together come from incidental items combined in interesting ways.  At least I hope it is interesting!

Behind the Scenes of Mayan Apocalypse Week

The elaborate set and the form of the Destructors are revealed!  Only one commenter picked up on this being an Oliver 9 playing the face of evil incarnate.

Mekanda Robo chipped in to help Godzilla get his fireball and atomic ball of doom.  This is the ugliest Christmas decoration, ever.  It needed to be put down and was purchased as a clearance item last year solely for the purpose of harvesting parts.

Gotta love the Jumbo Machinders.  Two of them are tricked out with accessory arms.  I thought about just putting two of them together in the buddy movie fashion, but that's not how the Shogun Warriors roll.

Thanks everyone for taking part in the madness that was my Mayan Apocalypse week!  It was a fun project and a nice way to break a blogging dry spell.  As is the norm, this did not start with a script or storyboard.  My 12-year-old did the original drawing of the Mayan Destructor at my request.  Simply put, I can't draw.  The rest of the story meandered from there.  I put together three entries; including this one, before we left the Kansas City area for St. Louis.  I love the scheduling feature on the Blogger platform.

You might have noticed a cameo appearance by the Christmas Squirrel.  Without his adept leadership, all would have been lost!  Late last year, the origins of the Christmas Squirrel were detailed in loving care here.

Copyright: Yes, all of the photos and words are mine.  Reposting or pinning photos requires placing a direct back to this website and a citation for Dwayne F. of Vintage Technology Obsessions.  Commercial use is not allowed.

Mayan Apocalypse - A Revealing Final Entry

Today is perhaps the End of Time.  The Mayan Destructors have pushed across South and North America.  The great robot army has fought valiantly, but is perhaps gravely outnumbered.  The combined armed forces of America have hardly made a dent on them.  Tactical nukes have proven effective, but leave too much land uninhabitable.

The End is calling, but I have made a promise and must deliver.  Here is the mysterious writing companion for the Mayan Apocalypse.

Yep, it is an Olivetti ICO!  I've had it since June, but have been frustrated in my attempts to get the carriage return lever working properly.  It cleaned up nicely and the design is stunning!  I can't say it is my favorite typing machine, but it is an aesthetic experience that is difficult to match.

 

I hope we'll still be around tomorrow.  The robots are trying to prove the Mayans wrong.  Until midnight, happy typing!

Will Tomorrow Come? Enter a General...

The General and his command staff.  This is one red shirt that isn't going to cash it in five minutes into the episode.

Mayan Destructors on the move.

Robot Army Assemble!

We are now two days away from the Mayan Apocalypse and still typecasting from an undisclosed location on a mysterious machine.

That would be December 19.  Too little sleep and not enough Thin Mints...

Gojira vs. the Mayan Destructors!

Godzilla is back and he's mad!  But can he save us from the Mayan Destructors?

Agent Svetlana Optima is still on the job and has gotten close enough to watch the terror unfold.

No two bit Mayan robot monster thing is going to stomp San Francisco!  That's Godzilla's job!

The Vintage Technology Obsessions team was pretty optimistic when the photos started coming in over the satellite uplink.  Godzilla has some new and unexpected tricks!  Sure, he vacillates between being for or being against human civilization, but today he is with us and that is all that matters.

Ha!  Take that, Destructors!  Godzilla now has Atomic Balls of Doom at his command!

The photos gave us a lot of hope.  Godzilla has faced much worse.  Mecha Godzilla almost did him in.  The King of Monsters will not be denied!

And then a message was delivered from the office to our underground lair:

That's it.  Three more days and it's over.  We don't even know what happened to that brave giant robot who did battle with these same Destructors yesterday.  Godzilla didn't even slow them down.

The EMP from the last atomic blast took down Svetlana's sat comm.  At least the Stasi built up their agents' resistance to radiation.  She is a survivor.  We should be so lucky.

Seventy-two hours and counting...

Mayan Destructors on the Move?

It is so hard to keep mysterious black typewriters dust free!

Typecasting the Mayan Apocalypse in Style!

Just a reminder, the form of The Destructor was revealed on this very blog on December 15th.  I am happy to report that I have now gone through two boxes of frozen Thin Mints and a dozen chocolate iced crullers from Dunkin' Donuts.  Healthy?  Most likely not, but who cares when the world is coming to an end in five days!

Mayan Apocalypse: It's On!

Bad news, readers.  After snarkily dismissing the Mayan prediction that the world ends on December 21st, I have to eat a big helping of crow.  The National Geographic "B" team struck unfortunate pay dirt in another Guatemalan cave.

The world WILL END on December 21st, and the Mayans even showed the form of the Destructor back in the 5th Century B.C.

Sorry to bum you all out this close to Christmas.  But it doesn't appear Christmas is coming in any way we would have expected.  It will most likely look like this.

Have a great most-of-a-week-that's-left.  I'm going to sign off now and eat a few boxes of frozen Girl Scout Thin Mints.  I suggest you do the same.

12/12/12 : Scenes from the End Times

Once again, I must apologize for a hastily constructed blog entry.  However, it has been brought to my attention that today's date is full of awesome number orderliness.  It is a repetitive pattern that will never be repeated in our lifetimes!

This is especially true given that the Mayans said the world would end on December 21st.  Bummer.

Presumably, the end times will be interesting in a chaotic way until the Earth splits asunder and we are consumed by the inner fire.  Or something like that.  I've tried to imagine what December 21st might look like and have drawn from an ample inventory of photos taken in junk rest homes to share with you, the gentle reader.

So there you have it.  Apparently, only the strong will survive.  Mostly.

My Spousal Unit commented that perhaps this image collection had gone a bit too far.  To that I say we must face The End with as much mirth as we can muster!  I sincerely wish everyone of you a pleasant last week or so on this poor, doomed planet.

The Print Shop Saves the Day!

I have to confess to a bit of a blogging dry spell as of late.  I've had too much travel and more than a few kid events over the last two weeks.  I promise to arrange my thoughts into something vaguely coherent in the near future.  Until then, I present you with evidence of a (mostly) dead brand and a bit of quaint computing technology.

Not surprisingly, I found this early Mac detritus in a thrift store.  Today, we all take 300 DPI laser printed documents for granted.  In 1989, not so much.  Check out that super sexy mouse! 

My favorite bit of advertising puffery:  "You don't have to be an artist to use The Print Shop.  However, after just a few minutes, The Print Shop will unleash your creativity and make you look like an artist without even trying."

I am impressed at the grammatical accuracy exhibited on this box.  It appears that True Nerds were at the helm of the Broderbund empire.  You'll have to pretend that the "o" has a slash through it.

I kept the tractor feed paper for typing fun and recycled the box.  It was a semi-happy trip down memory lane.

Thoughts on Greenbuild 2012 and San Francisco

Welcome to my post Greenbuild 2012 blog entry!  Scroll on down for the typecast...

This is probably the most touristy thing I took a photo of other than looking back on the Ferry Building from an adjacent pier.

This hybrid Fisker Karma is about 3,000 times cooler than my hybrid Prius.  Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.

This is USGBC Founder and CEO Rick Fedrizzi delivering a message to the anti-LEED lobby during the Opening Plenary session.  I work for a construction product company, but I also help write and maintain LEED.  Politics is a complicated beast.

Fast forward from Tuesday to Friday for the Closing Plenary.  That statistic on the screen is accurate: the entire number of volunteer hours that have gone into building and curating Wikipedia are equal to three weeks of Angry Birds play.  This statistic makes me a bit more prone to be focused on life and learning.

The Closing Plenary was a bit more dynamic than last year's, but they all tend to seem long after several days and nights of sessions and receptions.  The speaker, Jane McGonigal, is a TED favorite.  She presented a variation of her TED talk on harnessing the problem solving and creativity of gamers to crowd source solutions to difficult problems.

The next speaker is a prominent architect and proponent of regenerative design, William McDonough. Among others, his most widely known project is the redesign of the Ford Rouge Truck Plant.  From the perspective of moving towards a Net Zero future, he raised the fundamental question of "What's Next?"

William McDonough has very strong opinions on materials in design.  His consulting group has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies.  His TED talk tracks many of the concepts brought forth at Greenbuild.

This cursive typeface is unique to Royal portables from the 1960s.  Mine is a grey on grey Futura 800/

And the last Greenbuild related photo below is the view from the Google Green Team lair.  The food was fabulous as well.

Here are a few scenes from around San Francisco.  For anyone who is curious, all shots were taken with a Sony NEX-3 with the kit lens or 16mm f2.8 pancake lens.  Many of the street photos were taken by pointing the camera in the right direction without looking at the view screen.  The auto-focus is quick enough to shoot from the hip and capture casual scenes.

Public skating rink at Union Square.  The sight of palm trees and a giant Christmas tree together was only a little disconcerting.

The homeless fleet massing across from the Ferry Building.  In my limited experience, I found the panhandlers to be far less aggressive here than in Atlanta, Chicago or Washington, D.C.

Public protest is a way of life in San Francisco.  This is across from the cordoned off entrance to the Federal Reserve building.

Again, public protest is a common event.  However, this guy was angry, loud and semi-intelligible.  Even the locals were giving him wide berth.

This much vacant sidewalk at midday is a rarity.

At the very end of Greenbuild week, I found myself with no meetings or working meals.  I hopped the bus to find the Super7 Store.  The fact that it is located in Haight-Ashbury was a happy coincidence.  The food was great and cheap.  The stores were great for browsing and I was able to bring home some Super7 merch straight from the source!

Yeah, it was sunny all week while I was in the convention center (sigh).  This gives a little bit of the flavor of the area.

One of the cool specialty stores.  Well, cool if you enjoy irony.  They even had an Underwood 3-bank portable for sale!

But the main reason I took the bus to Haight-Asbury is the one and only Super 7 Store!  Imagine, a store full of giant robot, Star Wars, giant monster and urban vinyl paraphernalia.  Nerd heaven!

Unexpected bonus:  the first Kid Robot store was just up the street!

And with one last awesome storefront, we shall bid the fair city of San Francisco adieu.

 Hmmm...let us see if I can think of something creatively snarky to say about my Copyright to the text and images contained herein this little blog of mine.  Well, I own it all!  Bwa, ha, ha.  Yes, so greedy of me in this open-source world; but that is just the way it is.  Images may be used for non-commercial purposes with attribution pointing back to this blog or to my Picasa collection.  They may not be utilized for commercial purposes without express permission from the owner - that being Dwayne F.  I know:  that which can be published digitally can be hacked.  Go ahead.  Just see what happens.  I happen to have a fleet of giant robots and monsters at my command.  Remember what happened to poor San Francisco in my last post.  I repeat:  bwa, ha, ha.